back to article Body of murdered cyberwar expert found in landfill

The body of a decorated US Army officer was found dumped in a Delaware landfill on New Years Eve day, a few days after he expressed concern that the nation wasn't adequately prepared for cyber warfare, according to news reports following the bizarre whodunit. Events surrounding the murder of John P. Wheeler III, who most …

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  1. Petrea Mitchell
    Thumb Down

    It does too sound random

    "Those details, combined with the fact that someone went to considerable effort to hide Wheeler's body in a trash dumpster in nearby Newark, Delaware, would suggest the homicide wasn't a random mugging."

    Quite the contrary-- a guy wandering around disoriented and claiming he has lots of money is going to look like a great target to your random mugger, and the nearest large trash bin is the easiest place to think of to put the body.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not the nearest trash bin

      According to the linked story, the bin he was dumped into was in Newark. That is about 12 miles (and many hundreds of trash bins) away from where he was wandering in Wilmington.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      We do things differently in the UK

      David Kelly found under at tree with his wrists slashed..... Surely my addled brain is drawing unwarranted conspiracy conclusions.

      There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this and I'm sure the necessary parts will be revealed in due course.

      1. david wilson

        @AC

        >>"Surely my addled brain is drawing unwarranted conspiracy conclusions."

        Surely it is.

        If 'They' had actually wanted someone dead and 'They' had managed to get him wandering around and acting stoned or drunk for a couple of days, surely 'They' could have found less mysterious methods than a body ending up on a landfill site?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    brain problems

    Maybe he just ended up with something going bust (like a blood vessel) in his brain, causing him to be confused and incoherent. He then just passed out in a dumpster and died there maybe ...

    but that would kill the whole "suspicious angle" of it. Wonder what the Medical examiner will find

    1. Petrea Mitchell
      Thumb Up

      I concur, except...

      The police are really, really sure it's homicide, so I presume there are clear marks of violence and the "passed out" explanation didn't work. (I know, I know, maybe they aren't clear and the police are jumping to conclusions.)

      But other than that, yeah. Stroke, tumor, lots of possibilities.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    More David Lynch that Tom Clancy.

    Sounds more like something out of Twin Peaks to me.

  4. Joe Zeff
    Troll

    How long?

    I wonder how long it will be before this shows up as an episode of NCIS. It's exactly the type of story they specialize in.

    1. Swoop
      Happy

      Me too...

      ...my first reaction on reading the story was to imagine "Ducky" chattering away to Gibbs as he conducts the autopsy. But he was an air force man, not navy, so I think the case would be out of their jurisdiction.

    2. elderlybloke
      Big Brother

      Donlt know how long

      I don.t watch NCIS type programs

      Saves me from going in for ideas of a conspiracy under every bed.

  5. Chris Miller

    Surely the M-I complex

    is delighted with folks who hype the prospect of cyberwar. More Defense department dollars into the trough - what's not to like (unless you're a US taxpayer, of course)?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't forget the NCB angle

    He was also credited with writing the Biological and Chemical Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual, so maybe there is much more to this story....

  7. JaitcH
    Alert

    John P. Wheeler III: Moving force behind the VietNam Memorial

    John P. Wheeler III was a major mover behind the VietNam Memorial, (see: < https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial >) a memorial that brought out the best and worst of America.

    Maya Ying Lin, although Chinese(-American), was the controversial winner of a public design competition for the Memorial, beating out 1,441 other competition submissions. aged 21 and still an undergraduate, not so much because of her design but her ethnicity vis-a-vis VietNam are of the war. See: < https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Maya_Lin >. One of her detractors was the Texan Ross Perot who called her an 'egg roll' referring to her Chinese Heritage.

    John P. Wheeler, and his supporters stood behind the competition winner, notwithstanding significant veteran opposition, a decision that was later confirmed by visitor counts now around 3 million visitors annually. Up yours Perot!

    Wheeler has been trumpeting cyber war for years and was a consultant in the establishment of the Pentagon's cyber war efforts earlier last year.

  8. FozzyBear
    Alien

    Break out the tin Foil hats

    ii was going to start on all my conspiracy theories but I'm busy wrapping a couple extra layers around mine.

    Aliens 'cause they are the ones who dunnit

  9. kain preacher

    media black out

    I've hear nothing of this on my local news or the cable news.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    First they drug you...

    ...to make it look like you're having some sort of medical condition or mental episode, then they whack you in what appears to be a self-inflicted act or a random act of opportune violence.

    Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

  11. tribecker

    similar recent case in Montreal

    A couple of weeks ago there was a similar case in Montreal - a man dining with friends stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and send a text message, then disappeared. Two days later he was found dead in an industrial zone, apparently dead of hypothermia. Further investigation showed that he was wondering around the neighborhood for several hours, confused and disoriented. This was bizarre enough, but it also didn't jibe with the coherent and grammatically correct text message he had sent minutes before disappearing.

    http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/todays-paper/Besner+captured+video/4022478/story.html

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Never anger the BOFH

    He should have known better than to waltz into Mission Control and bother the PFY about "cyber warfare defenses" and "we absolutely need this new firewall application gizmo, the vendor told so".

    The cattleprobe shooting out from under his kitchen chair was a fair warning. He didn't stop...

  13. Andy Farley
    WTF?

    It sounds more like

    a fugue state to me. As in, he's done a mental.

  14. Spartacus
    WTF?

    Die Hard 4

    haven't we seen this story before, only IIRC when they let him live, he was very naughty.

  15. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    Mind Games can easily damage your Health and certainly confiscate Global Wealth

    "he [John P. Wheeler III] expressed concern that the nation wasn't adequately prepared for cyber warfare,"

    Well, there's absolutely no question that he was not wrong in that obvious conclusion and NEUKlearer observation. Very few nations, if any at all, are adequately prepared and some are not prepared at all, and it is probably the case that such will be the default position for practically all, for the foreseeable future.

    It does raise the spectre though, that anyone who is so prepared, and would and could so prepare others, would be in an ....... well, it is hard not to conclude, an invincible and overpowering position. And have a priceless business also to float into the Market Place and ITs AIMarket Spaces. And who or what is to say that it is not primarily for Beta Underground Group Use in SMARTer Facilities and Virtual Utilities.

    IT is a strange tale indeed, Dan Goodin in San Francisco. And Real Spooky too, probably?

    "Don't forget the NCB angle ..He was also credited with writing the Biological and Chemical Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manual, so maybe there is much more to this story...." ... AC Posted Thursday 6th January 2011 01:15 GMT

    Yeah, quite so, AC, those MkUltra Senstive Programs can really pchuk up your head if you don't know what to expect and what you are doing, and cause both General and general panic.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    erm.... okay....

    Think I'm siding with the tin-hat society on this one. - Sounds more like this guy got 'wacked'!

    People who commit suicide tend not to throw themselves in the rubbish afterwards.

  17. YumDogfood

    "confused and disoriented"

    My brother got hit over the head with a steel pipe as he was resisting some bastard chavvy muggers. The A&E staff thought my brother was only drunk (he was fully sober), f*ing idiots.

    PS: They tried for his Tag watch, but were too stupid to know how to remove it...

  18. BorkedAgain

    It does read like a novel...

    ...or the synopsis of one of the more OTT and silly action thriller movies. I always thought real life hired better scriptwriters, though.

    Sad to hear that (what sounds like) a decent man has died in distressing circumstances. Despite the Clancey-esque details, I'd tend to assume lizard overlords probably weren't involved.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another possibility (which I'm sure they have thought of)

    He wasn't diabetic was he?

    1. Petrea Mitchell
      Boffin

      That isn't diabetes

      Hypoglycemia can mimic mild drunkenness for a little while, but then it quickly progresses to mimicking more severe drunkenness in the form of unconsciousness and death. It's an interesting thought, but he was wandering around way too long for that to be it.

  20. Anonymous Stoner
    Black Helicopters

    hmmmm

    It does all sound a bit convenient...

    I mean the whole witnesses who saw him wandering around in a daze and even the attendant who supposedly spoke with him, stating that he repeatedly kept saying he wasn't drunk...

    Who can guess what the coroners report will say? its either going to be;

    a) death by alcohol poisoning

    b) death by hypothermia

    c) death by physical trauma to the body (obviously will be caused by falling into the land-fill)

    To me it sounds like he got 'erased' for all his loudmouth 'scare-mongering'

    Black helicopters because they're on their way as we speak.

    1. david wilson

      @Anonymous Stoner

      >>"It does all sound a bit convenient..."

      And no doubt would be exactly the kind of thing you would have predicted even before hearing any of the facts?

      >>"Who can guess what the coroners report will say?"

      You seem to be having a pretty good try.

      Still, I'm sure the report will either be consistent with something that can be made to seem suspicious (because it's odd) or suspicious (because it isn't odd, and is therefore 'too convenient'), or the report will be suspicious itself because it makes a conclusion that isn't at all easy to spin as murder, and the report must therefore be a lie.

      It's not possible to disprove conspiracies, since the paranoid can easily twist any piece of evidence into support, even evidence which simply contradicts them.

      Not that that's actually a great skill - anyone could do it if they wanted to, but sane people don't want to.

  21. Matt Hawkins
    Pint

    Obvious

    Its fairly obvious he was murdered before he could blow the lid on the secret of the dead birds in the US and Sweden.

    Or he might have committed suicide after hearing about the Royal Wedding one too many times.

  22. James 5
    Black Helicopters

    Call in...

    ... the Silent Witness team. They'll have it solved in one episode (or maybe a 2 parter!).

    But beware! This is what'll happen to anyone the Met Office considers a Man Made Climate Change Denier in the future!

    1. Ross 7

      Denier

      I wondered what climate change had to do with tights, then my other brain cell piped up...

    2. david wilson

      @James 5

      >>"This is what'll happen to anyone the Met Office considers a Man Made Climate Change Denier in the future!"

      In *landfill*?

      Surely it'd be more eco-friendly to chop and dry them and burn them in a biomass plant, or recycle them as fertilizer?

  23. Christoph
    Alien

    Sorry about the confusion

    Apologies for having him wandering about confused like that - it was due to all the weird weather you've been having lately. Our Orbital Mind Control Lasers kept losing focus.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    LOL

    Loving all the conspiracy theories, although it was probably just a brain injury or illness, followed by sleeping in a dumpster in a confused state. Unfortunately for him it was collection day...

    Black helicopters they were probably actually elsewhere that day ;)

  25. disgruntled yank

    "I've hear nothing of this on my local news or the cable news."

    Do you live in one of the US mid-Atlantic states, then?

    There are probably not enough dumpsters in the eastern US to hold everyone who works for a US defense contractor at the level of involvement this fellow seems to have had.

  26. Hooch181
    Black Helicopters

    Don't know...

    if this is actually dodgy, but would make for a hell of a story!!!

    Shame really, the guy seemed to have his head screwed on, lots of good causes and such!

  27. red hal
    Black Helicopters

    The Stuxnet connection.

    So, how much did the unfortunate Mr. Wheeler know about the true Genesis of that particular piece of malware?

    Of course that's a load of old tosh, but my brain just won't let it go.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Occam's razor applies...

    ... although I said that about the Pimlico murder and that turned out to be Occam's very small enclosed space...

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    These are not the conspiracy theories you are looking for.

    He can go. Move along.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    you just can't speak out against the Lib zeitgeist

    Gary Condit-Dem, involved in various Defense committees-and one who understood the truth about WMDs in Iraq-as in, they were there, we found them (also in the mysteriously un-hyped parts of the Wikileaks releases) but that wasn't what Dems wanted heard so they cooked up a murder "scandal" that ruined his reelection-the body "mysteriously" found very close to the victim's home soon after the election when investigators decided to try searching *both* directions of the trail from Levy's house instead of just one.

    A cyberwar expert, an expert in biochem, points out weaknesses that current Administration does not want fixed. Doesn't toe the current Party line, first becomes a "former" official, then mysteriously "erased". Other than short mentions, there is no media hype like we get if a good Lib political figure even imagines he's been "slurred", much less actually threatened or attacked.

    Wikileaks doesn't care because, well, it doesn't fit @ssflange's agenda as an anti-western propaganda source and espionage clearinghouse. The Media doesn't because they can't find a way to blame the TEA Party.

    Only the Reg dares bring it back up in true "WTF is wrong with this picture?" style. Screw wikileaks, Give me the Reg and sic Lewis Page onto the case. Make sure he has his black turtleneck, dive gear and laser watch before sending him out tho!

    1. disgruntled yank

      Geistbusting

      For the benefit of UK readers:

      In November, a District of Columbia jury convicted Ingomar Guandique of the murder of Chandra Levy, once intern and mistress to Rep. Gary Condit. Guandique had previously attacked other women in Rock Creek Park, where Ms. Levy's body was found.

      The DC police did an incompetent search of the park initially--a matter of distance from the trail rather than direction. They also focused on Condit as suspect, somewhat absurdly. The net effect was that Ms. Levy's body was recovered much later, well after Condit had lost his election.

      (Remind me, where on the periodical table do you find "cyber"?)

  31. Harthin

    This has been ALL over the news here

    No media blackout here in Philadelphia (not far from where this happened). It has been a part of every newscast for days.

  32. AlistairJ

    Simple explanation

    Neighborly dispute turns ugly, some violence inflicted in own home, followed by unexpected death possibly from heart attack or similar. Neighbor disposes of body and blood-stained floorboards.

  33. thecakeis(not)alie

    This will make

    a wonderful Castle episode.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What

    "but that wasn't what Dems wanted heard so they cooked up a murder "scandal" that ruined his reelection-the body "mysteriously" found very close to the victim's home soon after the election when investigators decided to try searching *both* directions of the trail from Levy's house instead of just one."

    So the fact that the victim was his intern had nothing to do with it ? A republican replaced him .

    The cops didn't leave him alone because he refused to answer with or not he had an affair with the victim and that pissed the cops of. I dont know how you get this twisted slant that it was the democrats over wmd or that the news media only wants to report on anti tea party stuff .

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